Bangladesh fancies a chance of reaching the semifinal round of the Hockey World League given they pull an upset in the round-2 of the international event billed to start in Singapore from January 17-25.
The International Hockey Federation replaced Mexico and Fiji, who pulled out of the tournament at the last minute, with Oman and Ukraine to complete the seven-team line-up that will also see Poland, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore and Bangladesh.
Bangladesh were pitted alongside Poland and Japan and in order to reach the next round Bangladesh must beat either of their superior ranked opponent.
As preparation Bangladesh will play two friendlies, the first against hosts Singapore on January 12 followed by Oman on January 15.
In the second round of the HWL 2013 Bangladesh earned only one win against China (3-2) while they lost all the other matches with Ireland (5-2), Oman (4-1), Fiji (8-4) and India (5-1).
Coached by the Malaysian Gobinathan, who has Mamunur Rashid as his deputy, the Bangladesh hockey team has been going through intensive training at BKSP for the last two weeks. The mixture of youth and experience in the team and the fitness level has boosted the confidence of the coaches.
“The fitness level is international standard, I believe that the team will falter in the last two quarters as it happened in the previous international meets, we have a good number of options to play in the same area,” said Mamun.
Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Hockey Federation withdrew the suspension of four leading players and among them Russell Mahmud Jimmy, Quamruzzman Rana and Imran Hasan Pintu has forced their way into the team. With Jimmy back in action Bangladesh’s attacking strength has also increased and if he provides his true form, Bangladesh will be a team to consider.